About Us

ACLS Humanities E-Book (HEB) is an online collection of approximately 4,300 books of high quality in the humanities, accessible through institutional and individual subscription. These titles are offered by the ACLS in collaboration with thirty learned societies, over 100 contributing publishers, and the Michigan Publishing division at the University of Michigan Library. The result is an online, fully searchable collection of high-quality books in the Humanities, recommended and reviewed by scholars. These are works of major importance that remain vital to both scholars and advanced students, and are frequently cited in the literature. (See title list.) The collection features unlimited multi-user access and free, downloadable MARC records. HEB is available 24/7 on- and off-campus through standard web browsers.

HEB adds hundreds of books annually to the collection, including several carefully selected new XML titles that have the potential to use new media to communicate the results of scholarship in new ways. Titles include monographs, collected essays and some primary sources.

To guarantee the scope and quality of this interdisciplinary collection, ACLS collaborates with learned societies and university presses to assist scholars in the electronic publication of high-quality works in the humanities, to explore the intellectual possibilities of new media, and to help assure the continued viability of scholarship in today’s changing publishing environment.

HEB was originally funded as the ACLS History E-Book Project in June 1999 by a $3-million, five-year grant from The Andrew W. Mellon Foundation, with additional funding from the Gladys Krieble Delmas Foundation. The collection launched in September 2002. Now in its second phase, HEB achieved self-sustainability in the spring of 2005 and became ACLS Humanities E-Book in January 2007.

HEB offers the following benefits:

a comprehensively reviewed collection, chosen by scholars and scholarly societies

full-text books presented in three formats: page-image, text and PDF

a fully integrated, cross-searchable platform

universal and 24/7 access to all members of the campus community

unlimited course reserve and classroom use

elimination of off-site, missing, or damaged print copies

in-depth, full-text, rather than extract, search results

free, downloadable MARC records and usage statistics

an interface accessible by a variety of assistive technologies designed for readers with disabilities

an expanding collection of print-on-demand titles and handheld editions (available for separate purchase)